Advocates of federal minimum wage and overtime pay protections want President Obama to tell them why nothing has happened in the year since he promised to change the federal wage and hour rules in favor of home-support aides.
 
In a Dec. 13 letter, supporters of the change urged the president to “stand by your promise to home care workers and carry these long-overdue minimum wage and overtime reforms across the finish line.” The advocates note that of the 26,000 public comments on the Department of Labor rule, three-quarters of them favor revising the companionship exemption rule, which would eliminate an exemption for the industry from pay standards for in-home workers employed by agencies.
 
At the time Labor proposed the rule change, Obama said there were almost 1.8 million home workers who under the Fair Labor Standards Act were treated the same as baby sitters even though many of them perform such services as tube-feeding and wound care for home-bound patients’ profits.”
 
As reported by CQ HealthBeat, a Labor spokesman said the department still is working on the rule. Two months after the proposed regulation was published, the administration extended the time for the public to comment beyond the original Feb. 27 deadline.
 
The home care industry pushed back strongly against the proposed change, saying it would lead to lost jobs and diminished care for patients because of the increased costs of providing care.
 
When Obama’s proposal first was published, 29 states lacked the protections in question.